Monday, August 13, 2012

Are you ready for some hardball? OK, so hank Williams Jr. said football, not hardball but hardball may be the sport retired teachers need to play during this election season. So what do I mean by playing hardball?

I first heard the term hardball used by Richard Nixon, who was himself quoting Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt said that in politics we must play hardball, meaning"reward our friends and punish our enemies". In a political context that means vote for your friends. I'm a pretty consensus kind of guy and don't like to think about enemies but I do think we need to vote for our friends: but first we have to find out who our friends are.

How Do We Find Our Friends?
The current general election season is the perfect time to find out who our friends are. My suggestion is that we should go to the candidate forums and have a list of questions for the candidates. Our best friends, TRTA , may have some suggested questions on their website www.trta.org . I have not seen such a list though, so here are my suggested question 1. Are you aware that Texas Retired teachers do not have any automatic cost of living adjustment and have not received any cost of living adjustment since 2001. This means that retired teachers have lost 30 per cent of their purchasing power since 2001, putting some at the poverty level2. If you believe that this situation should be corrected , are you willing to raise the state contribution to give the teachers some relief?3. What other legislation or ideas do you have to rectify the cost of living situation for Texas retired teachers? 4. Are you aware that Texas teachers do not pay into Social Security or receive social security but have a defined benefit retirement program . Some have suggested changing the definedbenefit plan be changed to a defined contribution plan where Texas teachers will be completely dependent on their own knowledge of investments to fund their retirement. Do you favor changing the current defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan? What Do We Do With This Information?After we have the answers to out questions, what can we do with those answers ? Here are some suggestions:Write letters to your local newspapers and explain the issues concerning retired teachers and the candidates stand. Work for a candidate. I have worked in many campaigns through the years and, believe me, they always look for and appreciate help. Go to your trta local meetings and share what you learned about the candidates stands and see if there are any other suggestions.Your Turn: Do you agree with the suggestions above about playing "hardball? Do you have any other issues you think the candidates for office should address? Just scroll to the bottom and click on comments. a screen will appear for your comments. Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Does the current Teacher Retirement system of Texas need reform? Apparently some politicians, journalists and other inquiring minds think so. The main purpose of this blog is to discuss the two main reform suggested: moving from the current defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan and moving the retired teacher system into social security.

The Current TRS defined benefit Plan

The current retirement plan for Texas Retired Teachers is a defined benefits plan. www.investopedia.com/terms/d/definedbenefitspensionplan.asp The defined benefit plans are a promise of a defined amount of pension for life based on a predetermined formula. In the case of the Texas retirement system the formula is to multiply the number of years paid into the system by 2.3 and then multiplying the average of the three highest salaries by that number. Lets say a teacher had taught for thirty years ; multiply thirty by 2.3 and you get 69; lets further suppose this retired teacher had an average of $ 50,000 for their three highest years; multiply that number by .69 and you get $34,000 for our fictional teachers lifetime pension. You probably already know the average retired Texas teacher makes quite a bit less. Though the purpose of this blog is descriptive and not persuasive I will reveal that this current TRS defined benefit plan, with some tweaking, is my choice. Now, onward to the proposed alternatives.

The Defined Contribution Alternative

Some state legislators and political commentators such as Bill King, Houston business man and occasional Houston Chronicle columnist. www.billkingblog.com have suggested that future the TRS be changed from a defined benefits plan to a defined contribution plan. What would that mean? Well, rather than a guaranteed lifetime amount, the retired teacher's final retirement amount would be based on the amount of contributions made by the teacher( with possible contribution from their school district) and how well or ,how poorly, these investments chosen by the retired teacher or at least those choices allowed by their district, perform over their active career in education, very much like the 403B plan most of us are familiar with. Obviously the investor ( teacher) would need to educate themselves about investing, which would require not only an interest in investing, but probably some aptitude for investing as well. My speculation is that under this system, some retirees would be better off, some about the same and some worse off, maybe a lot worse off.Moving To Social Security

A second reform mentioned is that Texas would move all the teachers out of the TRS and join the social security system. www.ssa.edu. Would this be good for future teacher retirees? Probably not. The average social security recipient receives $18,000 while the average TRS annuitant makes $ 32,000, so although I was not a math major, I think I know enough math to recognize a bad deal when I see it. However, if retired teachers go another decade without a cost of living adjustment then the Social Security option might start looking better. I also think a case could be made for changing Social Security into a true retirement system by requiring that all Americans including members of Congress join the system and assuring that all American workers receive a pension worth 80 % of their working salary. However that's a topic for a future blog.

Your Turn

I would really love to have your opinion on:

1. Do you favor keeping the current defined benefit TRS system or one of the reforms.

2. Is there another reform you would favor?

3. Another comment you would care to make?

Just scroll to the bottom, click on comments and a space will magically appear for your comment Thanks for reading.

About Me

I was born at an early age! Sorry , I stole that from Graucho Marx, but I always wanted to use this line.Actually ,I was born in Corsicana Tx and grew up in Corsicana and Waco. After graduating from high school and, having no idea what I wanted to do with my life, I joined the U.S. Army and spent three years, mostly in Germany with the 24th infantry division. This turned out to have been wise as I was able to use the GI bill to obtain a bachelor's degree, in history, from Baylor University . Later I managed to prove that if one is tenacious enough, any academic accomplishment is possible, by getting masters degrees in history and counseling. My 38 year career in education started as a teacher at LaVega High School and included stops at Alief Middle School, Dulles High School, Willowridge High School, Clements High School and Houston Community College. I enjoyed all my teaching jobs, but , in 2005, I found the job I was most skilled in- retirement. Seriously I plan to use this blog to explore the journey of the retirement years, healthy aging, education issues and occasional nostalgia. The journey won't mean much though without you, the reader coming along, so welcome.